Email. What used to be one of the ‘best new inventions’ of the modern world has now become a monster that can eat up your time, frustrate you immensely and even infect your computer. Yes, it’s still an excellent way to communicate but with all the crap that comes through email these days it almost seems like it would be easier to just send smoke signals.

But there is help. Below you’ll find 7 ways to help you deal with your email and turn it back to the light side of the force. Use these tips and soon you’ll have your email monster tamed and maybe even look forward to looking in your ‘inbox’ again.

1) Don’t be a slave to your inbox. If you check your mail every time you hear that ‘ding’ you’re going to kill your productivity. Unless you’re waiting for something extremely urgent checking once an hour is probably fine.

2) Responding immediately is not always a good idea. Again, unless it’s urgent responding within 2 hours is acceptable. Besides, if you always respond right away people will start to expect that.

3) Ask for and be clear in your email messages. If you know what people need and they know what you need you will spend a lot less time going back and forth with innumerable emails.

4) Know how your email program of choice works. Most of them have excellent time-saving features that never get used because nobody takes the time to read about them. D’oh!

5) Going away? Set phasers to ‘kill email’. If you don’t want to return from vacation with a mountain of email use an auto-responder to let people know you’re away and when you’ll be back and delete their emails automatically.

6) Learn how to use your email program’s search function. Let’s face it, wading through a shipload of emails trying to find one bit of info is for monkeys. Using the search option will save you a lot of valuable time.

7) Know how to use your email’s Spam controls. They’re different for every program but essential if you don’t want to waste half of your day looking at ads for penis enlargement pills.

There you go. 7 great tips for helping you break the email beast. If you even use half of them you will see an immediate difference in your inbox and a reduction in time wasted. Now if you’ll just stop playing Farmville all day on FaceBook you might even get some stuff done.

Willpower is one of the most important predictors of success in life. We all have willpower. Every morning we have a certain amount of willpower that we deplete by the end of the day. You can think of it as having money in your pocket that you spend throughout the day.

That is why after a long day at work or school, you just want to sit in front of the television or computer and zone out because you have spent most of your willpower during the day. Each decision and action you make during the day either increases or decreases your willpower.

Willpower is like a muscle that you can strengthen with use or get fatigued with use. Each person only has a certain amount of willpower throughout the day. I want to talk about how the practice of meditation increases your willpower.

1. Research has shown that a few minutes of meditation each day can boost willpower by building up gray matter in areas of the brain that regulate emotions and govern decision making. When you meditate everyday, you will be building your willpower muscle.

2. Meditation promotes better sleep. When you are well rested and have enough sleep, your willpower naturally increases.

3. When we are under a lot of stress, our willpower will be diminished. Meditation will help minimize or eliminate the harmful stress in your life. Successful people conserve willpower by developing effective habits and routines to reduce stress.

4. Meditation improves a wide range of willpower skills including concentration and focus. Your ability to focus and concentration is one of the most important determinations of whether you’ll achieve success in life.

You have a great idea. It’s selling well. You’re getting yourself in line for a promotion at work or seeing an uptick in sales with your business. As time goes on, however, the ideas you’ve offered become stale. They’re no longer exciting. People have moved on to the next great idea.

If that has happened to you, then here are 7 proven ways that will help you get relevant again and then stay relevant in the future.

#1. Be like a cat. Cats are famous for being curious. You’ve got to keep learning, striving, and growing to stay engaged. If you ride one great idea for months, eventually that rut will cause people to look for something that’s fresher and newer to enjoy.

#2. Read something different. Salespeople read sales books. Religious people read religious books. Marketers? They read marketing books. Don’t do this. Read something different and you’ll challenge yourself with a fresh perspective. As a bonus, the side effect of reading something new is that you’ll develop a deeper niche expertise in what you already do well.

#3. Use your ears. There are thousands of unique podcasts that are available for free on the internet today. Sometimes they focus on education. At other times, they just offer a fresh perspective. Either way, you’ll stay up to date with what is going on and be able to offer relevant advice from what you’ve learned.

#4. You can learn something new every day. There’s always a way to be a little better today when compared to yesterday. Tomorrow should be better than today. You can accomplish this by finding something new to learn. Think about joining a conference, making time for a webinar, or even giving your own seminar on what you do.

#5. Go back to school. You don’t have to pursue a degree to enjoy a good class. If you don’t want to pay a college for class materials, there are numerous free college courses that are published online today to further the learning curve. When you’re well-rounded, you will be more relevant.

#6. Have a mentor on standby. The most relevant people are always questioning, always testing, and never really satisfied unless 100% perfection has been achieved. By having a mentor available when the chips seem down, you’ll have the chance to process through difficult events and talk out some fresh ideas.

#7. Go out and meet someone. You don’t have to be a socialite or networking genius to benefit from meeting someone new. We’re like sponges. A little bit of everyone we meet is absorbed into our own perspectives. Positive people will keep you moving forward. Keep your network fresh with new faces and you’ll stay relevant.

It can be difficult to purposely create change. Sometimes, however, change is needed to stay relevant. Incorporate these ideas to get yourself out of that stale rut and you may just find opportunity knocking at your door.